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Friday, August 22, 2014

Portland's Cost of Compliance

As it turns out, many Portland city
properties are not compliant with ADA standards, even after recent
renovations. But with the hefty price tags that come with mending
these issues, it seems that officials need to take a look at which
facilities would see the most benefit from being fixed.

According to Willamette Weekly,
city officials have been putting together a list of problem areas and
hope to fix them to avoid lawsuits, but it's a huge undertaking.
There are 25,829 places on city property that are not compliant with
ADA standards, and of those, almost 80% are in city parks.

Even the recently renovated Providence
Park stadium is not up to code; Essentially none of the ramps and
concourse walkways meet ADA slope requirements. Fixing this could
cost up to $1.1 million.

So far, the city has spent $663,402
identifying barriers in extreme detail. They have taken into account
fractions of inches. While this attention to detail is nice, one
hopes that the city uses good judgement in prioritizing renovations.
For instance, putting in wheelchair ramps where none currently exist
might take precedence over raising a Benson Bubbler drinking fountain
one inch.

According to disabilities advocate with
the United Spinal Association, Ian Ruder, many of the
identified barriers aren't keeping people from where they need to go.
“It's a black-and-white law in a gray world,” Ruder says.
“Hopefully they are able to prioritize the places that have the
greatest impact for the most people.”

According to officials from Portland
Parks and Recreation, they will use a $68 million parks bond that is
on the ballot this November to help with the upgrades, though the
exact amount that would go into accessibility upgrading was not
specified.

So, kind of a bummer that there are so
many issues in our city that make for problematic accessibility, but
at least they are being identified, and hopefully they will be fixed
in spite of the large cost.

What do you think? Have you witnessed
any of these issues firsthand? What do you think about Ruder's
assessments?